Book Review: "Saoirse" by Charleen Hurtubise

This was a piece of surprise bookmail I’m so grateful for. Thanks so much to Celadon Books for the complimentary advance copy!

Saoirse is an Irish painter in the late 1990s, whose career is really taking off. She lives in Donegal with her partner and their two young daughters. But when she wins a major prize for her work, instead of excitement, she is worried. Because the more her name is out there, the more risk there is that the secrets she carries will be revealed.

In 1990, Sarah was a teenager growing up in Michigan. Her stepfather got her enmeshed in a world of danger, abuse, and crime, and she knew her life was at risk. With no other choice, she escaped to Ireland under someone else’s name.

With nowhere to turn, she meets a man named Paul on her flight to Ireland. He is returning home and invites her to stay with him and his family until she can get on her feet. But it’s not long before she realizes that Paul wants to control her, and when she falls in love with another man, she must find a way to disentangle herself from him.

During her time in Ireland she takes the name Saoirse, which means freedom. And as her art starts to gain recognition, it provides her both freedom and danger.

This is a powerful book that shifts back and forth between Sarah’s life in the U.S. and Sarah/Saoirse’s life in Ireland. The traumas she confronts may be triggering for some, but she’s really a character you want to root for.

Book Review: "More Than Enough" by Anna Quindlen

“We never know what’s living inside the people around us. We only guess.”

Anna Quindlen’s books always fill me with emotion. Sometimes she makes me cry, sometimes she provokes anger, sometimes she leaves me smiling, and sometimes it’s a combination of one or more of these. But she always makes me feel something.

Polly is an English teacher at an all-girls private school. Having struggled with fertility issues, Polly has so much empathy and admiration for her students, and teaching is truly a labor of love.

Her closest friends are the three women in her book club (where they never read the books). These women have been there for each other through so much. As a joke, they buy Polly a DNA test kit, but they don’t expect her to actually do it. And then the test matches her with a secondary relative, but she can’t figure out the actual connection. So she begins a journey of self-discovery which leads to some revelations and some sorrows.

This book is all about relationships—parental, sibling, marital, friendship, and a desperation for motherhood. There are moments of beautiful loyalty, love, and anguish. And alpacas.

I really loved the characters Quindlen created here. I love the way she kept the book from veering into melodramatic territory and I loved the quiet moments as well. I thought this was beautiful.

Book Review: "Brawler: Stories" by Lauren Groff

Lauren Groff is a hell of a writer. Each of her novels has been vastly different and compelling, and her short story collections always crackle with power. And Brawler, her third story collection, may be her best yet.

The nine stories in this collection all find a character, often a woman, at some kind of crossroads. In many cases, these women have suffered some kind of abuse or pain, or they feel compelled to do something horrible. The stories are set from the 1950s to the present, and all over the country.

Some of the stories took my breath away for one reason or another, but there wasn’t a weak one in the bunch. Among my favorites were “The Wind,” about a mother and her children trying to flee her abusive husband; “Between The Shadow and The Soul,” in which a long-married couple is tested after the wife retires; and “Such Small Islands,” which tells of a young girl left to the care of a sister she doesn’t remember—and the young girl doesn’t like to share.

More favorites included “Sunland,” about a young woman who has to care for her disabled brother; “Annunciation,” in which a young woman unintentionally causes a colleague to flee suddenly; and the title story, about a swimmer who has to care for her hypochondriac mother and likes to cause chaos.

At the end of the book, Groff shares a sentence or two about what inspired her to write each story, or the feelings she was trying to convey. It's a fascinating peek into her creative process. I really was wowed by this collection!

Book Review: "The Reservation" by Rebecca Kauffman

I was looking forward to reading this for two reasons. First, I enjoy the way Rebecca Kauffman writes. Second, and perhaps more important, is how much I love reading about restaurants, chefs, and cooking.

Aunt Orsa’s is a fine dining restaurant in a small midwestern college town. It was once described in a review as “offbeat, eccentric Italian-ish.” Tonight is going to be a huge night for the restaurant: famed author John Grisham, who will be speaking at the college, will be part of a group dining at Aunt Orsa’s tonight.

As excited as everyone is about “Grisham Day,” chaos erupts early in the day. Apparently 22 ribeye steaks have been stolen; the thief left two in the refrigerator. Orsa blows a gasket and is determined to figure out which member of the restaurant staff stole the steaks.

While Orsa figures out which employees were most likely to have committed the theft, a number of secrets, arguments, resentments, and relationships surface. It seems as if almost everyone holds a grudge against a fellow employee.

The book is organized into separate chapters that focus on one or more of the staff, as well as Orsa. We get glimpses of their past as well as how they came to work at the restaurant. Some of the characters are vividly drawn and it felt like a few of the chapters could stand on their own as stories.

There is a lot of drama here, much like in many restaurants. At times things get a bit repetitive and once or twice they get hokey, but it was a fun read. And as usual, the book made me hungry!

Book Review: "Perfection" by Vincenzo Latronico

Hmm. I’m honestly not too sure what I think about this book. I’ll admit I considered DNFing it a few times, but I kept waiting for something significant to happen. I will say that the book definitely made me feel old and uncool, lol.

Tom and Anna are freelance creatives and millennial expats living in Berlin. Like most of their peers, they are energized by taking advantage of all the city has to offer them, and of course, documenting their activities on social media.

The book follows them as they drift through life, friends, jobs, sex, political activism, and ambition. At times they want more than they have; other times they’re overwhelmed by it all. Should they consider polyamory? Should they move somewhere other than Berlin?

As they grow older and their friends follow different paths, they start to wonder about what their futures hold. And they realize that the things they are starting to dislike about Berlin and their lives are partially the fault of their generation.

“They realized they had contributed to the problem that was starting to affect them, but they knew it in an unacknowledged, almost imperceptible way, like smokers when they think about cancer…Gentrification, as they understood it, was something other people did.

This was on the shortlist for the Booker Prize last year. Vincenzo Latronico’s prose is beautiful, but often the story has paragraph after paragraph of description, to echo the characters’ obsession with conspicuous consumption. It definitely made me think, even as I didn’t really warm to it.

Book Review: "Augustin Station" by Justin Greak

“…sometimes we have to lose ourselves a little to find ourselves. Move away from everything familiar to see what remains when all the external expectations fall away.”

I don’t know if I could recreate the online path I followed which led to my stumbling upon this exquisitely moving book. This is one of those unsung gems you hope to find and you feel fortunate you did.

Owen and his wife are American expats living in Sweden, where he works as a teacher. In need of a solo getaway, he takes a quick trip to Romania, hoping to get some good hiking in and clear his chaotic brain. But on his first full day, he boards the wrong train and winds up in a small village where tourists don’t usually stop.

Owen has spent his life pretending to be something that he isn’t. He’s hidden his real desires and dreams away to do the “right” thing. But his yearning for authenticity, for the freedom to stop worrying about how he speaks and acts, is beginning to wear on him. And as he has a long wait until another train comes, two separate instances of hospitality and insightful conversation make him realize he needs to be honest—especially with himself.

“Sometimes getting lost is the only way to find where you’re supposed to be.”

This was a tremendously powerful and poignant book that really struck a chord with me. I definitely felt the pressures that Owen did but realized I had to live my life the way I wanted to. It’s not an easy thing to do, and this book captured that internal struggle that so many people deal with. I’ll think about this book for a long while!

Book Review: "Murder at 30,000 Feet" by Susan Walter

I’m still waiting for my oxygen mask to drop after this book left me breathless! Wow, Susan Walter delivered a thriller that didn’t let up, but it also provided significant character development, which you don’t usually see in this genre. I know one thing for certain: I’m not in any hurry to fly, that’s for sure!

After a long delay, Pioneer Air Flight 868 is on its way to San Juan. Among its passengers are a high school baseball team, headed for a tournament; the bride, groom, and wedding party ready for a destination wedding; and a grieving mother whose son used to be on the team. There’s also an air marshal on board, but he’s just making a routine trip.

A few hours into the flight, the plane encounters some severely bad storms. Lightning strikes, causing a brief power and system failure, but everything seems to right itself after a moment. But then a gruesome discovery is made: a body is found in one of the bathrooms. And this wasn’t a death by natural causes.

It’s up to Renaldo, the air marshal, to investigate what happened without causing panic to erupt on the plane. While the pilot and first officer try to find a new place to land—and have to deal with more mechanical problems—Renaldo has to make sure that the murderer isn’t going to kill again.

What he quickly discovers is that there are more than a few people on the plane with secrets they’re hiding. And there seems to be a connection to an accident which occurred three years earlier. Can Renaldo find answers before it’s too late?

I first found Susan Walter when I read her beautiful book, Letters from Strangers. I had no idea she was a thriller writer until afterward, and now I’m hooked! This just delivered punch after punch, and every time I thought all was calm…nope! Really an excellent thrill ride.